Germany: Berlin’s airport debacle: Five years late and counting

You think you have a travel story from hell? Try this one: The inaugural flight from Berlin’s new international airport is almost five years late, and no one can say when it might take off. The airport’s planned launch in June 2012 was scrapped a month before its unveiling because of fire safety issues, and it’s since been pushed back three times. With costs piling up at E13m a month, the operating company in March saw the departure of its third chief in four years. The black eye for Germany’s exalted engineering prowess threatens to undermine a tourism boom in Berlin, and there’s talk of scrapping a plan to shutter Tegel, one of the city’s existing airports. “This airport should have been a world-class showpiece for Germany,” says Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline, which has long sought to introduce service to Berlin. “It’s an embarrassment.” The bill for Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt—most people call it BER—has more than doubled, to some E5b, since construction began in 2006. And the delayed opening has wounded local restaurants as well as airlines Air Berlin and Lufthansa, which had expected to expand routes from the capital. Instead, Germany’s biggest city has fewer overseas flights than Düsseldorf (with less than a quarter of Berlin’s population). Once BER opens, it may already be too small. It was designed to accommodate 27m passengers annually—ample for the 18m arrivals in Berlin in 2006. But last year, Tegel and the city’s other functioning airport, Schönefeld, handled 33m passengers. And BER will have 118 check-in counters, about 80 fewer than the combined number at Tegel and Schönefeld. <br/>